The Executive Committee Ujala Society- Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA), headed by Chief Secretary, B R Sharma Thursday approved the proposed outlay of Rs 2967 crore for the year 2016-17 for implementation of flagship scheme in the State.Commissioner Secretary, School Education, Shaleen Kabra, Commissioner Secretary, Finance, N K Choudhary, Commissioner Secretary, R&B Rohit Kansal, Secretary Social Welfare, Sanjeev Verma, Secretary Health, Dr Mandeep Bhandari, Secretary CA&PD, Saurabh Bhagat, Project Director SSA, Saugat Biswas, DSEK, Dr Shah Faesal, DSEJ, Ms Smita Sethi and other officers were present in the meeting.While reviewing the overall implementation of SSA in the State, Chief Secretary called for carrying GIS Mapping of schools to enable creation of a data base with records listing location of the school, infrastructure available, staff strength, number of students and other facilities including toilets available. “GIS Mapping should be completed by 31st March" he added.
Chief Secretary also stressed on carrying out a special audit on pilot basis and 3rd party evaluation & monitoring of SSA completed at the earliest. For helping Children with special needs, Chief Secretary urged sensitizing and training teachers towards giving care and attention to such children. Earlier, Chief Secretary while chairing the State Level Steering cum Monitoring Committee (SSMC) meeting of Mid Day Meal Scheme instructed School Education Department to start lifting food grains from CA&PD outlets nearest to the school rather than from Tehsil headquaters. In this regard, CA&PD department was asked to consider and arrange supplying food grains from CA&PD outlets/ fair price shops nearest to the schools. “It would save precious time of teachers in collecting food grains and ensure its timely supply “Chief Secretary noted.Chief Secretary also urged CA&PD department to ensure providing LPG connections to the left out schools and take up the matter with the companies supplying LPG in respective districts. Out of 23136 schools, nearly 10,000 schools still use firewood or kerosine stove for cooking Mid Day Meals.
Chief Secretary also issued directions to the School Education Department to develop a SOP in consultation with Health Department to conduct regular Health Checkup in schools.“Health Checkup should be taken up in mission mode and all students must have a health card issued indicating their health status and the same kept as record with the headmaster of the school” he said adding that schools should be linked to the nearest PHC and on already notified dates teams of health experts should conduct checkup of the students and the process should be performed twice a year.Health department was also asked to take up samples of cooked food regularly for testing to ascertain the quality of food being served to the children during Mid Day Meals. Meanwhile, The Committee approved the Annual Work Plan & Budget 2016-17 for an amount of Rs 251.92 crore.